Wednesday, October 31, 2012

If you’ve worked in restaurants before, you know that every
night before service the staff sits down to what’s called the “family meal.”
One of the younger cooks is usually charged with scraping together something
filling and, more importantly, not expensive. It was during one of these
meals that I first had adobo.

When I worked at the Carnelian Room in the late 80’s, much
of the kitchen crew was Filipino, so chicken and pork adobo was a very
common dinner. One of the dishwashers made a particularly great version, and I fell in
love with the bold, simple flavors. I also remember being pretty annoyed that
the dishwashers there were better cooks than I was at the time,
but that’s another story.

Anyway, I happened to have some duck legs around last week, and all it
took was a well-timed email wishing for adobo to inspire this video. I
understand that most of you will not use duck for this, but if you do, be sure
to save the fat.

Duck fat is prized by chefs, and more heart-healthy than
people realize. It can be used for just about anything you’d normally fry
in butter or vegetable oil. I roasted some Brussels spouts with mine, but it
also will make just about the best homefries you’ve ever tasted.

Like I said in the video, no duck, no problem. If you can simmer it
in a sauce, it will work in this recipe. Because of the high soy sauce content,
be careful about over reducing, but other than that, not much can go wrong.
This is cheap, easy, and very flavorful, which is why it makes for such a
great “family meal.” Enjoy!

Being Filipino, I've always thought of Adobo as the leftovers dish of our culture. You just throw whatever leftover meat you have into that sauce, and it's magic.

I make my own version of Adobo using 2 inch cubed beef roast (precut for stew) and serve on our traditional rolls called Pan de Sal.

I cook the beef in a similar marinade to yours in a slow cooker for at least 3 hours or more... and it is like the perfect garlic beef slider. You have to toast the rolls slightly though, so they can soak up that awesome sauce...

I was watching this new video you posted and my husband said "ohh, one of his videos. Is this what we're eating next?"haha! I've made several of your recipes, and even a few I've questioned on how good they would be, but they've all been wonderful.We dont have duck easily available where we are, but I am going to give this a go with some pork.Thanks for all the awesomeness :)

You can delete this comment, I only posted it for the correction. Also - Don't know if you saw my tabbouleh vid on Twitter, I followed your format and actually set it up so if you wanted to use it to substitute if you're sick or something you could. It's not *that* great quality wise but I figured I'd give it a shot!

When I was at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, we had a lot of Filipinos working in the lunch room and they'd often make chicken adobo. I've been wanting to learn how to make that dish for years.

Any reason why this wouldn't work with duck breast instead of legs? I can usually find breast at my local market but I don't recall ever seeing duck legs there. I suppose I could ask. . .

I am very proud to see that our humble Filipino Adobo is now being recognized and with a wonderful Chef John twist. Very nice, your cooking videos always makes me hungry especially with this one! :) Great job Chef John! :)

I just made this for my dinner. It was very salty!! I think next time I will use reduced sodium soy sauce. I love it when there aren't a lot of dishes to do after dinner, this was the perfect weeknight meal.

Hi Chef! I just made this with pork. Yum indeed. However, instead of sambal, I used Hainanese Chicken Rice Chilli Sauce with garlic and ginger. It added a nice tangy zing to the dish. Just a suggestion. :) Thanks a mil for the recipe!

Hopefully one day, you do a video on Devil (Debal) Curry. It'll put hair on your chest.

I made this recipe for dinner last night. I used 8 chicken thighs, & a few potatoes, & followed the rest of ingredients listed. I thought that the sauce was very salty. The vinegar was also very prominent. I added sugar to help take away the acidity. I ate the chicken adobo with rice, but I still couldn't finish my meal. :( I think it would taste better if I used less soy sauce & vinegar than what the recipe calls for. I've tried many chicken adobe Filipino style & I always thought that it was a little too salty. I'll have to try again til I get it to my liking. Sorry for the negative feed back, Chef John. I still love your amazing videos.

This was delicious, by the way. Made it last night with chicken thighs and drumsticks, wife took leftovers to work with her and we'll probably have whatever ends up being left from that for dinner tonight.

Sauce was quite watery for our dinner but I kept it simmering on the stove while we ate (probably for an additional hour and twenty minutes) and reduced it by half for the leftovers.

I have adobo about once a week, usually pork, chicken or squid, but duck sounds really interesting. Some people may not have rice vinegar, but white distilled vinegar can be used also. This is the first time I saw sambal sauce used in adobo, so I'm going to try this instead of using fresh hot pepper. Meat of choice is usually pork belly, but we cut back on the soy sauce and vinegar.

We have a large Filipino community in Ventura California, some say the largest outside of the P.I. There is always an adobo vendor at every church or other local festival. They usually use bone-in chicken thighs and legs usually in a combo with spring rolls. Always great, can't wait to try this recipe.

Chef John, I tried this recipe today but with pork. It turned out very well. I love the sour/salty flavour and it goes well with rice and vegetable. I also wanted to say how much I appreciate your Blog and videos.Thanks Again,Mike Lively, BC, Canada

Made this on Friday with chicken legs and thighs. I upped the level of sambal. I loved the end result but the missus found it too fatty although she liked the flavor. I had drained the skillet off the fat after I had browned the chicken, she still found it too fatty. I am thinking of using 3 skinless legs + 1 with skin the next time and maybe a little less vinegar. Do you think it will do the trick?

As you can see, misses with the missus (drum roll please) is unacceptable ;)

Also, what soy sauce did you use? I used Kikkoman regular soy sauce and it wasn't as dark as yours. Suggestions?

This was the third of your recipies I've tried out. I had only a (large) Duck breast to share between the two of us, but it turned out wonderful - the tastes were rich, sauce delicious, and meat superb.

I think I will retry this by first cooking the duck sous-vide, then browning, then applying the (previously-reduced) sauce to see how that turns out. I'm curious to see how the texture compares to braising. :)

After I made this dish, I had to sit down and rethink my life. The flavor was absolutely incredible and the smell lingered in my kitchen after I was done - it was bliss. I used chicken for this dish and added some red pepper flakes and just a tiny pinch of sugar at the end.

Thank you so much for sharing. This will definitely be a regular in the rotation this fall and winter.

I just bought duck legs and I am going to try this tommorrow, can you please tell me what soy sauce did u use? I have Kikkoman and Kecap Manis -maybe the latter would be better since it is sweeter? Thanks a lot!

I just wanted to point out that any time one *reduces* soy sauce, it's obvious that it's going to be really salty. Think of dried/drying out soy sauce/fish sauce--there'll be salt crystals at the bottom.

My grandmother makes this and uses Silver Swan soy sauce, it's a Filipino brand. It's more viscus and concentrated than the more common Japanese/Chinese/Korean soy sauce brands I've used. So it turns out to be really salty. She would always say that "it makes you eat more rice!"

Dear chef!Living in Asia for 5 years now, i added some extra Chinese tastes to it n the result was wonderful: 1- add some slices of fresh ginger to the sauce, it will add some heavenly taste to it2- when finished and just before serving, can add some chopped spring onion, it will bring some fresh crunch and lift the taste a bit!

I already made the dish 3 times and it was always awesome -really addictive though. After reading the comments saying it was too sour, I used Kecap Manis soy sauce (sweet, thick sauce) together with regular one -ratio 3:1. And it worked great! Many thanks for the recipe, look forward to another asian style recipes!

I'm thinking of making this for the weekend, most likely with chicken thighs. I don't mind chicken skin if it's crispy, but find soggy skin to be less than satisfying. I'm wondering if you have any advice as to whether or not to keep the skin on? You obviously did with duck legs, but I thought your use of parchment paper may have allowed enough moisture to escape to the skin to dry out enough despite having braised it (at least partially) skin-side down.

I know the first time I made coq au vin I was bummed out about that I left the skin on and don't want to make the same mistake here.

Wow! You certainly made this look fancier than the typical adobo! In the Philippines, this dish is usually one of the first ones taught to kids, probably because most people just dump all the raw ingredients together in a pot, bring it to a boil, then simmer until the meat is tender and the vinegar is no longer acrid. Couldn't be easier!

I have made this recipe so many times now and I've found it works with any meat you want to throw in there. My wife's work is hosting a cookout for the dorm residents and I'm going to use this recipe for chicken wings. They are going to be so good, I can taste that sauce already as it runs down my fingers and elbows :)

We traditionally throw in the garlic first before the onions. We throw the onion when the garlic is almost golden brown. Then we use whole peppercorn. Not grounded but that's fine. And we add sugar. Really. Then there is a variation. You can use lemon (we use calamsi) juice as replacement for vinegar. It tastes more divine. And yes, don't put more than 2 bayleaves on it unless you want it to taste like stronger similar to medicine which is not tasty.

I just got back from Duck Hunting in Arkansas and saved the legs from all the Mallards, pintails, gadwalls, and red heads. The pintails have an obscene amount of fat. Tried to pick most of the legs but only had good skin/fat on about half. I tried your recipe including the Sombal and it was increadible. Had to use a little more oil because these are wild ducks and except for the pintails, just don't have that much fat. An you are right, put the duck legs aside and spoon the sauce over some sticky rice. This was awsome!!!

I don't usually cook using recipes, but with this I decided to follow it pretty closely (I didn't have rice vinegar so I used some distilled white vinegar and about a teaspoon of sugar for two legs)and it was ABSOLUTELY, MIND-BLOWINGLY, CAN'T-BELIEVE-I-MADE-THIS delicious. Also, I had a stroke of genius and used the rendered fat (about two tablespoons) to coat and lightly toast my rice before adding chicken stock and cooking it covered until absorbed. Not the healthiest rice around, but it had a great pilaf-like richness and flavour with basically no extra work.Thank you Chef!